Night at the White Wolf Saloon

Published August 28, 2019

I walk across deserts with mules. I drink beer in saloons. Last night I ended up sitting across from a bottled alien talking mules and Wyoming with Carl and Diane Strode. They own the White Wolf Saloon.

Carl and Diane Strode: White Wolf Saloon proprietors. The pickled alien is from Devil’s Tower.

Welcome to the White Wolf Saloon: never accept candy from a ghoul with a top hat (though a beer is okay).

I don’t carry beer on saddle trips. It weighs too much. In fact, I don’t carry much to drink at all: 2 – 3 quarts of water is about all I travel with. It’s that weight thing…

Brick and her pack gear. All up, she carries just over 100 pounds. That includes water. Here you can see the 2 quart plastic bottle I carry water in. It’s hanging behind the yellow strap picket. It’s an iced tea bottle given to me by Suzan and Jeff Kendall earlier in the week.

All of which is my way of saying, when I get out of the desert after a week of traveling from small communities to wind mills in search of water, I’m thirsty.

Thirsty for some frosty hop-y goodness.

There’s a reason that when the pioneers built a settlement in these desert regions, the first thing they nailed up was the saloon.

Thing is, these days, when a community expands, it’s usually in a look-alike wave of corporate eateries:

Not so the White Wolf Saloon. It’s funky, hand crafted and just a little bit creepy. The perfect place to drop in for a mug o’brew after a week of scrounging water in the desert.

Carl and Diane bought the bar, listed on eBay as a haunted bar in Wyoming, 11 years ago. At the time, they were living in a log cabin in South Florida, outside Miami. Diane had worked 31 years in a vet clinic. Carl was a teacher and coach. Diane says their cabin was, “filled with all kinds of stuff like mounted mako sharks.”

They bought the bar and a home in Douglas. The bar was a nondescript watering hole. They soon changed that. They bought timbers from a bar going out of business, nailed up barn boards for interior siding and moved their collection of stuff from Miami to Wyoming.

Here are some photos of the White Wolf Saloon. A very cool place to slake a thirst or vampire. Well, that rubber chimpanzee mask starts looking like a blood sucker after a pint of Ten Fidy (as in 10.5 percent alcohol)…

…I ran in to Tom Fuller. This is the third time I’ve run across Tom. The first time he passed me in his RV outside Ansely, Nebraska, 370 miles ago. Then Friday we met outside Douglas. Tom was in town hunting prong horn antelope with his friends. Thanks for the drink Tom!

Remember “Miami Vice”? Diane says this stuffed alligator is said to be character Sonny Crockett’s alligator “Elvis”, from the series. She says it came of Don Johnson’s sailboat. It still looks cranky about having its head severed and mounted in a Wyoming bar.

Photo of bronco Steamboat doing his thing over 100 years ago at the Wyoming State Fair in Douglas. The mules and I are staying close to where this photo was taken. Steamboat is famous as being the bronco….

From Douglas, the mules and I head to Casper. Then it’s 100 miles of almost water-less desert to Lander. Out there in that dry land, when my lips start sticking and my eyes dry out, I’ll be daydreaming of my night at the White Wolf Saloon.

Thanks guys for the great time and empty plastic water bottles! The bottles will sure help us carry a bit more water in the desert ahead.

More about the White Wolf Saloon right here.